youth; this marble tells the rest,
Where melancholy friendship bends, and weeps.
Hymn to Ignorance
A Fragment
Hail, horrors, hail! ye ever gloomy bowers,
Ye gothic fanes, and antiquated towers,
Where rushy Camus’ slowly-winding flood
Perpetual draws his humid train of mud;
Glad I revisit thy neglected reign,
Oh take me to thy peaceful shade again.
But chiefly thee, whose influence breathed from high
Augments the native darkness of the sky;
Ah, Ignorance! soft salutary power!
Prostrate with filial reverence I adore.
Thrice hath Hyperion rolled his annual race,
Since weeping I forsook thy fond embrace.
Oh say, successful dost thou still oppose
Thy leaden aegis ’gainst our ancient foes?
Still stretch, tenacious of thy right divine,
The massy sceptre o’er thy slumbering line?
And dews Lethean through the land dispense
To steep in slumbers each benighted sense?
If any spark of wit’s delusive ray
Break out and flash a momentary day,
With damp, cold touch forbid it to aspire,
And huddle up in fogs the dang’rous fire.
Oh say—she hears me not, but, careless grown,
Lethargic nods upon her ebon throne.
Goddess! awake, arise! alas, my fears!
Can powers immortal feel the force of years?
Not thus of old, with ensigns wide unfurled,
She rode triumphant o’er the vanquished world;
Fierce nations owned her unresisted might,
And all was Ignorance, and all was Night.
Oh! sacred Age! Oh! Times for ever lost!
(The Schoolman’s glory, and the Churchman’s boast.)
For ever gone—yet still to Fancy new,
Her rapid wings the transient scene pursue,
And bring the buried ages back to view.
High on her car, behold the grandam ride
Like old Sesostris with barbaric pride;
… a team of harnessed monarchs bend
Lines Written at Burnham
And, as they bow their hoary Tops, relate
In murm’ring Sounds the dark Decrees of Fate;
While Visions, as Poetic eyes avow,
Cling to each Leaf and swarm on ev’ry Bough:
Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude
A Fragment
Now the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She woos the tardy spring;
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground;
And lightly o’er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.
New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance,
The birds his presence greet;
But chief, the sky-lark warbles high
His trembling thrilling ecstasy
And, lessening from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.
Rise, my soul! on wings of fire,
Rise the rapturous choir among;
Hark! ’tis Nature strikes the lyre,
And leads the general song.
Yesterday the sullen year
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
The Herd stood drooping by;
Their raptures now that wildly flow,
No yesterday, nor morrow know;
’Tis man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.
Smiles on past Misfortune’s brow
Soft Reflection’s hand can trace;
And o’er the cheek of Sorrow throw
A melancholy grace;
While Hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lower
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.
Still, where rosy Pleasure leads,
See a kindred Grief pursue;
Behind the steps that Misery treads,
Approaching Comfort view;
The hues of Bliss more brightly glow,
Chastised by sabler tints of woe;
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of Life.
See the Wretch, that long has tost
On the thorny bed of Pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again;
The meanest flowret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common Sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.
Humble Quiet builds her cell,
Near the source whence Pleasure flows;
She eyes the clear crystalline well,
And tastes it as it goes.
Gray on Himself
Written in 1761, and Found in One of His Pocketbooks
Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;
He had not the method of making a fortune;
Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd;
No very great wit, he believed in a God.
A place or a pension he did not desire,
But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.
Sonnet on the Death of Richard West
In vain to me the smiling Mornings shine,
And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join;
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire;
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,
A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire.
Yet Morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
To warm their little loves the birds complain;
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
And weep the more because I weep in vain.
Stanzas to Mr. Bentley
In silent gaze the tuneful choir among,
Half pleased, half blushing, let the Muse admire,
While Bentley leads her sister-art along,
And bids the pencil answer to the lyre.
See, in their course, each transitory thought
Fixed by his touch a lasting essence take;
Each dream, in fancy’s airy colouring wrought,
To local symmetry and life awake!
The tardy rhymes that used to linger on,
To censure cold, and negligent of fame,
In swifter measures animated run,
And catch a lustre from his genuine flame.
Ah! could they catch his strength, his easy grace,
His quick creation, his unerring line;
The energy of Pope they might efface,
And Dryden’s harmony submit to mine.
But not to one in this benighted age
Is that diviner inspiration given,
That burns in Shakespeare’s or in Milton’s page,
The pomp and prodigality of heaven.
As, when conspiring in the diamond’s blaze,
The meaner gems, that singly charm the sight,
Together dart their intermingled rays,
And dazzle with a luxury of light.
Enough for me, if to some feeling breast
My lines a secret sympathy …
And as their pleasing influence …
A sigh of soft reflection. …
The Candidate
Or, The Cambridge Courtship
When sly Jemmy Twitcher had smugged up his face,
With a lick of court white-wash, and pious grimace,
A wooing he went, where three sisters of old
In harmless society guttle and scold.
“Lord! sister,” says Physic to Law, “I declare,
Such a sheep-biting look, such a pick-pocket air!
Not I for the Indies!—You know I’m no prude—
But his nose is a shame—and his
